Precast Solutions Applied

Oran Pre-Cast were delighted to be involved in the construction of the New Engineering Building on the NUI, Galway campus. A number of former engineering students from the university were involved in the delivery of the project

The concrete structure consisted of in-situ column and wall elements combined with a composite precast flat slab solution. Oran Pre-Cast designed and manufactured approximately 10,500m2 of precast lattice flooring for this state of the art building.

Key design features included:

Clear spans of up to 13m

A sloping 7.5m cantilevered floor

280 to 510mm high flat slab system

Exposed concrete finish

Construction tolerance of just 5mm

Various cutting edge techniques were employed throughout the build, including one of the first uses in Ireland of a voided slab system. The cobiax void former technology reduced the volume of concrete required by approximately 1,000m3. The resulting reduction in self-weight allowed for increased spans and smaller foundations. The long term performance of the slab is being monitored using instrumentation cast into the concrete slab.